a comparison of global conservation prioritization models with spatial spending patterns of...

Contributed Paper

A Comparison of Global Conservation PrioritizationModels with Spatial Spending Patterns ofConservation Nongovernmental OrganizationsDR. GEORGE HOLMES,∗ KATHERINE SCHOLFIELD,† AND DR. DAN BROCKINGTON†∗School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom, email [email protected]†School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom

Abstract: In recent decades, various conservation organizations have developed models to prioritize lo-cations for conservation. Through a survey of the spending patterns of 281 conservation nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs), we examined the relation between 2 such models and spatial patterns of spendingby conservation NGOs in 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. We tested whether, at the country level, theproportion of a country designated as a conservation priority was correlated with where NGOs spent money.For one model (the combination of Conservation International’s hotspots and High Biodiversity WildernessAreas, which are areas of high endemism with high or low levels of vegetation loss respectively), there was norelation between the proportion of a country designated as a priority and levels of NGO spending, including bythe NGO associated with the model. In the second model (Global 200), the proportion of a country designatedas a priority and the amount of money spent by NGOs were significantly and positively related. Less moneywas spent in countries in northern and western sub-Saharan Africa than countries in southern and easternAfrica, relative to the proportion of the country designated as a conservation priority. We suggest that on thebasis of our results some NGOs consider increasing their spending on the areas designated as of conservationpriority which are currently relatively underfunded, although there are economic, political, cultural, historical,biological, and practical reasons why current spending patterns may not align with priority sites.

Keywords: Africa, conservation spending, high biodiversity wilderness areas, hotspots, NGOs, prioritizationmodeling

Una Comparacion de Modelos de Priorizacion de Conservacion Global con Patrones Espaciales de Gastos deOrganizaciones de Conservacion No Gubernamentales

Resumen: En decadas recientes, varias organizaciones de conservacion han desarrollado modelos parapriorizar localidades para conservar. Mediante un muestreo de los patrones gastos de 281 organizaciones deconservacion no gubernamentales (ONGs), examinamos la relacion entre dos de esos modelos y los patronesespaciales de gastos de ONGs de conservacion en 44 paıses en Africa sub-Sahara. Probamos sı, a nivel de paıs,la proporcion de un paıs designado como prioridad de conservacion se correlacionaba con donde gastabanel dinero las ONGs. Para un modelo (la combinacion de las areas de importancia para la conservacion deConservacion Internacional y las Areas Silvestres de Alta Biodiversidad, que son areas de alto endemismocon altos o bajos niveles de perdida de vegetacion respectivamente), no hubo relacion entre la proporcionde un paıs designada como una prioridad y los niveles de gastos de las ONGs, incluyendo la ONG asociadacon el modelo. E el segundo modelo (Global 200), la proporcion de un paıs designada como prioridad yla cantidad de dinero gastada por ONGs se correlacionaron significativa y positivamente. Se gasto menos

Paper submitted May 20, 2011; revised manuscript accepted January 19, 2012.

602Conservation Biology, Volume 26, No. 4, 602–609C©2012 Society for Conservation BiologyDOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2012.01879.x

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dinero en paıses del norte y occidente de Africa que paıses del sur y oriente, en relacion con la proporciondel paıs designada como prioridad para la conservacion. Sugerimos que con base en nuestros resultados,algunas ONGs consideren incrementar su gasto en areas designadas como prioridad para la conservacionque actualmente estan recibiendo relativamente pocos fondos, aunque hay razones economicas, polıticas,culturales, historicas, biologicas y practicas por las que los patrones de gastos actuales no estan alineados conlos sitios prioritarios.

Palabras Clave: Africa, areas de importancia para la conservacion, areas silvestres con alta biodiversidad, gastoen conservacion, modelos de priorizacion, ONGs

Introduction

In the last few decades, some nongovernmental conser-vation organizations (NGOs) have developed methodsto prioritize locations for conservation. Often based onspatially extensive data, these methods aim to make con-servation more strategic and effective by identifying loca-tions of the highest priority for conservation on the basisof a given set of criteria (Olson & Dinerstein 1998; Myerset al. 2000; Halpern et al. 2006). Different methods applydifferent criteria to identify high-priority areas, and themethods have become increasingly complex, incorpo-rating a broad range of biological and economic criteriaacross a variety of scales (Wilson et al. 2006, 2009). De-spite calls for empirical assessment of the effectivenessof conservation spending (Ferraro & Pattanayak 2006),whether the designation of conservation priority areas islinked to spending on conservation has not been studiedthoroughly. We explored the relation between the loca-tions identified by prioritization models and locations ofspending by NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa.

Prioritization models variously emphasize endemism,ecosystem richness, presence of habitat for given species,level of human influence on the landscape, amount of lossof natural vegetation, and other factors. Different mod-els prioritize different areas. Combined, 9 global mod-els identified by Brooks et al. (2006) prioritize 79% ofEarth’s land surface area, although many of the modelsprioritize the same locations. We focused on 2 of thosemodels, WWF-International’s Global 200 priority areasand Conservation International’s combined hotspots andhigh biodiversity wilderness areas (HWBAs). Hotspots areplaces with relatively high endemism and vegetation loss.More than 0.5% of the world’s vascular plant species areendemic to each hotspot, and at least 70% of primary veg-etation no longer remains within each hotspot (Myers etal. 2000). High biodiversity wilderness areas are definedas areas >10,000 km2 that contain more than 70% of veg-etation similar to that believed to be present 500 yearsago; that have an average density of <1 person/km2, ex-cluding urban areas; and that have relatively high speciesrichness (Mittermeier et al. 2003). Unlike other prioritiza-tion models, these are spatially explicit, global in extent,and identify large areas. The creators of the models aimto provide guidance for coordinated action by the en-

tire conservation sector, not just the organizations withwhom they are associated (Olson & Dinerstein 1998; My-ers et al. 2000; Halpern et al. 2006). We compared thelocations prioritized by those models with spatial pat-terns of spending by conservation NGOs. Data on NGOspending comes from a previous survey of expenditureby 281 conservation organizations across 44 countries insub-Saharan Africa (Scholfield & Brockington 2008).

The WWF’s Global 200 model (Olson & Dinerstein1998) identifies 233 marine, freshwater, and terrestrialpriority areas on the basis of species richness and taxo-nomic, evolutionary, and ecological distinctiveness. Theset of priority areas was intended to represent as manyglobal types of land cover as possible. Its creators seeit as a guide for the whole conservation sector, notjust WWF (Olson & Dinerstein 1998). In sub-SaharanAfrica, 28 terrestrial priority areas cover 9,445,932 km2

across 38 countries (range 4,574–1,924,886 km2, mean337,354 km2 [SD 425,743]) and 9 freshwater prior-ity areas cover 5,788,379 km2 across 24 countries(range 11,167–2,868,296 km2, mean 643,153 km2 [SD875,267]). Of the freshwater priority areas, 3,860,967km2 overlap terrestrial priority areas. Six marine prior-ity areas cover 2,657,928 km2 in the exclusive economicarea of 13 countries (range 104,957–706,680 km2, mean442,998 km2 [SD 243,136]). Although 2 of the marinepriority areas extend into other continents, we includedin our study only the portions inside the 44 sub-SaharanAfrican countries represented in the spending survey.Of the 44 countries, only Cape Verde and Burkina Fasocontain no Global 200 sites. Terrestrial and freshwaterGlobal 200 sites cover 49.1% of the surface area of the 44sub-Saharan African countries represented in the survey,and marine Global 200 sites cover a total of 34.5% of theexclusive economic areas of the same group of countries.

The number of hotspots increased from 10 (Myers1988), to 14 (Myers 1990), to 25 (Myers et al. 2000) as thedata were reexamined or updated. As of 2003, there were34 hotspots, 9 of which were in sub-Saharan Africa (Mit-termeier et al. 2003). These 9 hotspots cover 4,160,410km2 across 31 countries (range 3,730 [Cape Verde’s por-tion of the Mediterranean ecosystem] to 1,290,335 [Hornof Africa] km2, mean of 520,021 km2 [SD 432,774]).Three sub-Saharan African hotspots extend into othercontinents, but we included only the portions of these

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604 Prioritization Models and NGO Spending

hotspots located inside the 44 countries included in thespending survey.

Conservation International, which was involved in thedevelopment and revision of the hotspot model, has usedit to identify places where it should prioritize its work(Myers et al. 2000). Since 2003, it has used the high bio-diversity wilderness area (HBWA) model along with delin-eations of hotspots to identify priority sites (Mittermeieret al. 2003). Of the 5 HBWAs, 2 are in sub-Saharan Africa:the Congo Basin (1,726,260 km2 across 6 countries) andthe Miombo–Mopane Woodlands and Savannas of South-ern Africa (1,194,990 km2 across 9 countries). Combined,hotspots and HBWAs cover 30.7% of the 44 countries inthe spending sample, although of these, 8 countries con-tain neither HBWAs nor hotspots. The models’ creatorsargue that the 2 models combined can inform a planfor coordinated global conservation action by the entireconservation sector, not just Conservation International(Mittermeier et al. 2003).

The NGOs that developed each model argue that themodels should be used to guide the global distributionof conservation resources, but each NGO acknowledgesthe following caveats and makes the following observa-tions. First, although they believe the models should beused to direct the global distribution of conservation re-sources (financial and political), local expertise and cir-cumstances should shape how these resources are used.Second, the creators of each model recognize the ex-istence of other models, the ideological values sharedamong the NGOs, and the spatial overlaps in the high-priority sites identified. Third, each NGO acknowledgesthat resources for conservation need to be directed toplaces outside priority areas. Fourth, given the NGOs’desire to guide expenditure, each model assumes con-servation resources can be easily moved from one loca-tion or issue to another, which excludes the political andeconomic factors that affect where conservation NGOsspend their money. In addition, these models serve pur-poses other than guiding conservation activity. The NGOsinvolved in the models’ creation have used them suc-cessfully for fundraising, marketing, and lobbying (Myers2003; Adams 2004; Sachedina 2010).

More effort has been put into creating global prioriti-zation models than into measuring whether spending isconcentrated in high-priority areas, even by NGOs associ-ated with the models (Cleary 2006; Halpern et al. 2006).The scarce evidence indicates a limited correlation be-tween spending and conservation priorities. Halpern etal. (2006) provide the sole peer-reviewed study of linksbetween prioritization models and spending. They ana-lyzed spending by major donors and conservation NGOswith the 2 prioritization models we analyzed and with athird model (BirdLife International’s Important Bird Ar-eas). They found that global priority models explain 37%of the variation in country-level spending. Results of otherstudies show that 15 of 57 WWF priority ecoregions in

Latin America and the Caribbean received no interna-tional funding from NGOs, government agencies, foun-dations, major research institutions, environmental trustfunds, or bilateral or multilateral institutions between1990 and 1997 (Castro & Locker 2000) and that of the 16countries that receive the most international environmen-tal aid, only 6 have >3 WWF Global 200 sites and 7 have>1 hotspot (Mansourian & Dudley 2008). Brockingtonand Scholfield (2010a) found that spending by conser-vation NGOs is greater in sub-Saharan African countrieswith higher species richness and a higher number ofspecies on the International Union for Conservation ofNature Red List of threatened species.

We focused on NGO expenditure for 3 reasons. First,compared with governments, NGOs are relatively free towork where they wish and so should be more able to re-spond to changing priorities. Second, activities of NGOsare a more accurate measure of how much is being spenton conservation in each place than more distant grantmaking by international donors. Third, NGOs devised theprioritization models we analyzed here and other prioriti-zation models (Brooks et al. 2006). In sub-Saharan Africaconservation NGOs have relatively high economic andpolitical influence, given the region’s limited financialresources for conservation.

Methods

Data on NGO expenditures came from a previous sur-vey of the activities of 281 conservation NGOs operatingin 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa before the seces-sion of South Sudan from Sudan (Scholfield & Brocking-ton 2008; Brockington & Scholfield 2009, 2010a, 2010b).The NGOs in the survey were identified from the litera-ture, internet searches, and lists of grantees reported byfunding organizations. We circulated the list among aca-demics, practitioners with local expertise, and the NGOslisted, and asked them to provide names of any unlistedNGOs of which they were aware. Although we may havemissed some of the smaller NGOs working in the re-gion, we are confident the survey included the majorityof organizations. We used a parsimonious definition ofconservation NGO that excluded organizations workingon animal welfare, soil or water conservation, and hu-man development, but included organizations workingon community-based wildlife issues whose spending onthese issues could be identified. For full details of thesurvey methods, see Scholfield and Brockington (2008).

Expenditure data were for the years 2004, 2005, and2006 and are expressed in 2006 U.S. dollars. The amountspresented are an average of spending across these 3 yearsfor each country and include direct spending and costs ofraising and administering funds. Values are not adjustedfor the varying costs of conservation in different countries


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and biomes or of different species; for the presence ofregional headquarters in certain countries; or for the dif-ferent costs of different activities. We ranked countriesby the proportion of their territory that was containedwithin Conservation International’s combined hotspots(Conservation International 2004) and HBWAs (Conser-vation International 2005) and WWF’s Global 200 (Ol-son & Dinerstein 2002) per square kilometer of nationalterrestrial territory and per square kilometer of nationalterritory including marine economic exclusive area (datafrom VLIZ 2009). We used Spearman’s rank correlationto compare the latter rankings with those we based onspending.

The hotspot-HWBA model is exclusively terrestrial,whereas the Global 200 model includes terrestrial, fresh-water, and marine areas. In the survey, respondents werenot asked to distinguish between spending on marine andland-based projects, so we could not remove spending onmarine conservation from the data set. We think it is un-likely that marine spending is substantial. In 2003 marineconservation was a relatively low priority (IUCN 2003),and it is doubtful that spending changed considerably bythe time the survey was conducted. To test whether in-cluding or excluding marine data affected our results, weused Spearman’s rank correlation to compare spendingper unit land area and spending per unit land and seaarea.

To compare locations identified by prioritization mod-els with locations of conservation spending, we used Ar-cGIS Desktop (version 9.3.1) and ArcGIS Desktop (ver-sion 10 SP3) (ESRI, Redlands, California) to overlay globalvector maps of hotspots, high biodiversity wildernessareas, and Global 200 sites with maps of national bor-ders (both including and excluding marine exclusive eco-nomic area). We calculated the percentage of land ineach country in sub-Saharan Africa that lies within one ofthese sites. For the Global 200 sites (Olson & Dinerstein2002), we avoided double counting areas within over-lapping terrestrial and freshwater sites by classifying theoverlapping areas as terrestrial. We combined hotspots(Conservation International 2004) and HBWAs (Conser-vation International 2005) because they did not overlapin space. We compiled data at the national level so wecould compare it with the data on NGO spending.

We ranked countries by NGO spending (U.S. dollarsper square kilometer national land surface area and ma-rine exclusive economic area) and by the percentage ofeach country’s land surface area and sea surface area des-ignated as a conservation priority under each of the mod-els (Table 1). We compared the terrestrial and marinerankings with Spearman’s rank correlation, and testedwhether rankings were significantly different at alpha =0.05 with a 2-tailed t test.

We also tested whether the relation between spend-ing patterns and locations of conservation priority ar-eas varied between NGOs with different annual expendi-

ture. First, we excluded spending by WWF-Internationaland WWF-South Africa because the WWF partnershipaccounts for 29% of spending by NGOs in sub-SaharanAfrica. Second, we classified the NGOs on the basis ofannual expenditure. The first category included the 4NGOs that spent over $10 million/year, or 61% of to-tal conservation spending (WWF, Conservation Interna-tional, Wildlife Conservation Society, and African WildlifeFoundation). The second category included the 6 NGOsthat spent between $2 and 10 million annually, or 21% oftotal funding (Peace Parks Foundation, Jane Goodall Insti-tute, Fauna and Flora International, Frankfurt ZoologicalSociety, African Parks Foundation, and Dian Fossey Go-rilla Fund International). The third category included theremaining 271 NGOs that spent <$2 million annually, or17% of total spending. We ranked countries by spend-ing by NGOs (in dollars per square kilometer nationalland surface area and marine exclusive economic area)in each class and used Spearman’s rank correlation anda 2-tailed t test to compare each of the 3 rankings withpercentage of the country’s land surface area and sea areadesignated as a priority area under each of the prioritiza-tion models. To test the relation between each model andits associated NGO, we used Spearman’s rank correlationand a 2-tailed t test to compare the percentage of eachcountry’s land surface area and sea area designated as aGlobal 200 site with spending per square kilometer landand sea surface area by WWF. We repeated the processwith hotspot-HBWA sites and Conservation Internationalspending per square kilometer land area.

To assess which countries tended to receive most andleast NGO spending relative to the percentage of theirland surface area designated as a conservation priority,we ranked countries by the total amount of NGO spend-ing they received divided by the total area of Global 200sites contained within their borders. We repeated thisprocess for combined hotspot-HBWA sites.

Results

The relation between percentage of a country’s land anda country’s land and marine exclusive economic area in-cluded within hotspot-HBWA sites and the total amountspent by NGOs within that country was not statisticallysignificant (land area: rs = 0.25, p = 0.35; land and marinearea: rs = 0.39, p = 0.008). There was a positive relationbetween the percentage of a country’s land surface areacontained within Global 200 terrestrial and freshwaterareas and spending by NGOs overall (rs = 0.49, p <

0.001), NGOs excluding WWF (rs = 0.59, p < 0.001),and NGOs with total annual expenditure exceeding $10million (rs = 0.43, p < 0.001). There was a significantpositive correlation between percentage of a country’smarine exclusive economic area and land surface area



Table 1. Total annual spending (2006 U.S. dollars) in countries in sub-Saharan Africa by conservation nongovernmental organizations (2004through 2006), per square kilometer of a nation’s land area only, and a nation’s land area and marine exclusive economic area (MEEA).

$/km2 land area $/km2 land $/km2 land areaCountry $/km2 land area and MEEA Country surface area and MEEA

Rwanda 100.65 100.65 Namibia 4.95 2.95Cape Verde 37.66 0.10 Congo, DRC 4.46 4.46Swaziland 34.19 34.19 Sao Tome & Principe 4.16 0.02Gabon 27.49 15.86 Guinea 2.71 1.87Kenya 23.76 19.94 Central African Republic 2.65 2.65Malawi 18.73 18.73 Botswana 2.29 2.29Lesotho 18.68 18.68 Ghana 2.21 1.14Madagascar 17.94 5.91 Senegal 1.89 1.05Uganda 17.04 17.04 Ethiopia 1.39 1.39Tanzania 15.37 12.23 Cote d’Ivoire 1.23 0.80The Gambia 14.32 4.37 Nigeria 0.85 0.71Congo 13.28 11.88 Burkina Faso 0.67 0.67Burundi 12.47 12.47 Angola 0.46 0.33Sierra Leone 11.39 3.57 Togo 0.28 0.22Liberia 11.34 3.16 Djibouti 0.16 0.12South Africa 11.20 5.97 Niger 0.12 0.12Guinea-Bissau 9.84 2.25 Eritrea 0.10 0.06Zimbabwe 9.30 9.30 Sudan 0.05 0.05Cameroon 8.80 8.53 Mali <0.01 <0.01Zambia 7.29 7.29 Benin 0 0Equatorial Guinea 7.05 0.56 Chad 0 0Mozambique 5.29 3.07 Somalia 0 0

Note: Data from Scholfield and Brockington (2008).

within a WWF Global 200 site and spending by NGOsoverall (rs = 0.71, p < 0.001), spending by NGOs exclud-ing WWF (rs = 0.64, p < 0.001), and spending by NGOswith total annual expenditures >$10 million (rs = 0.65,p < 0.001), $2–10 million (rs = 0.53, p < 0.001), and<$2 million (rs = 0.50, p < 0.001).

Whether marine exclusive economic area was includeddid not substantially alter the results. Total NGO spendingper unit land area was significantly and positively corre-lated with spending per unit land and marine exclusiveeconomic area (rs = 0.85, p < 0.001).

The relation between the country-level expenditureof Conservation International and the proportion of na-tional surface area included in hotspots and HBWAs wasnot statistically significant (rs = 0.24, p = 0.118). Wefound a significant positive relation between percentageof a country’s land and marine exclusive economic areadesignated as WWF Global 200 priority sites and spend-ing by WWF (rs = 0.63, p < 0.001).

Large (>$10 million/year) and small (<$2 million/year)NGOs tended to spend similar proportions of money inthe same countries (rs = 0.60, p < 0.001 for land area; rs

= 0.72, p < 0.001 for combined land and marine area).The relation between spending by small and medium($2–10 million/year) NGOs was statistically significant (rs

= 0.34, p = 0.003 for land area; rs = 0.46, p < 0.001 forcombined land and marine area). The relation betweenlocation of spending by medium and large NGOs was notstatistically significant. There was a significant positivecorrelation between the percentage of a country’s land

and marine exclusive economic area within a Global 200site and within hotspot-HBWA sites.

Of the 10 countries that ranked highest for NGO spend-ing per square kilometer of hotspot-HBWA sites withintheir borders, 6 were also among the 10 most highlyranked for NGO spending per square kilometer of Global200 sites within their borders (Table 2). This ranking ex-cludes countries in which money was spent but noneof its territory was designated as a priority under eithermodel. Of the 14 countries in Table 2, 10 are in south-ern or eastern Africa and 10 are former British coloniesthat gained independence after 1956 (of the 44 coun-tries in our sample, 14 are former British colonies thatgained independence after 1956). Of the 10 countriesthat ranked lowest for NGO spending per square kilome-ter of hotspot-HBWA sites within their borders, 7 werealso among the 10 lowest ranked countries for NGOspending per square kilometer of Global 200 sites withintheir borders (Table 3). Of the 13 countries in Table 3,all except Angola are located in West Africa and the aridand semiarid regions of northern sub-Saharan Africa.

Discussion

The relation between the percentage of a country’sarea designated as a conservation priority and spendingby conservation NGOs is inconsistent. Neither overallNGO spending nor spending by Conservation Interna-tional was significantly correlated with proportion of area


Holmes et al. 607

Table 2. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa in which total annualspending by conservation nongovernmental organizations (2004through 2006 in 2006 U.S. dollars) was greatest per square kilometerof area in combined hotspots and high biodiversity wilderness areas(HS and HBWA) and combined terrestrial, freshwater, and marineGlobal 200 areas (G200).

HS and HBWA G200

$/km2 $/km2

country priority area country priority areab

Rwanda 299.21 Zimbabwe 107.35Malawi 172.80 Guinea-Bissau 106.69Uganda 95.96 Rwanda 100.65Namibia 93.40 Swaziland 81.52Botswana 88.45 Niger 48.07Kenya 76.04 Lesotho 34.30Zimbabwe 63.63 Botswana 29.84Swaziland 51.24 Gabon 27.55Tanzania 49.70 Kenya 25.59Cape Verde 40.70 Malawi 22.04

aExcludes 8 countries that do not contain hotspots or HBWAs (Burk-ina Faso, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Mali, Niger, Senegal, TheGambia).bExcludes 2 countries that do not contain Global 200 areas (BurkinaFaso, Cape Verde).

designated as hotspots and HBWAs. There was a statisti-cally significant relation between percentage of a countryincluded within Global 200 sites and NGO spending forall NGOs, for NGOs of different sizes, and for spendingby WWF. Results did not differ on the basis of land areaonly or on the basis of land and marine area because 16 ofthe 44 countries in the sample are landlocked and manyothers have small marine economic exclusive areas. Ourresults suggest that some NGOs could increase the align-

Table 3. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa in which total annualspending by conservation nongovernmental organizations (2004through 2006 in 2006 U.S. dollars) was least per square kilometer ofarea in combined hotspots and high biodiversity wilderness areas (HSand HBWA) and in combined terrestrial, freshwater, and marineGlobal 200 areas (G200).

HS and HBWA G200

$/km2 $/km2

country priority area country priority area

Nigeria 6.11 Togo 2.57Sao Tome &

Principe4.97 Ethiopia 1.90

Coted’Ivoire

2.67 Angola 1.15

Togo 2.57 Djibouti 0.46Angola 1.63 Sudan 0.24Ethiopia 1.55 Eritrea 0.13Eritrea 0.18 Mali < 0.01Djibouti 0.16 Benin 0Benin 0 Chad 0Somalia 0 Somalia 0

Note: Conservation nongovernmental organizations spent no moneyin Benin, Chad, or Somalia.

ment of their spending with the locations of areas desig-nated as a conservation priority by the hotspot-HBWA andGlobal 200 models. However, factors other than priori-tization affect where conservation NGOs spend money.First, about one-third of NGOs working in sub-SaharanAfrica have missions that emphasize one species, taxo-nomic group, or place, whereas the prioritization mod-els are based on assemblages (Scholfield & Brockington2008). However, the missions of 7 of the 10 NGOs thatspend the most money in sub-Saharan Africa are not spe-cific to species, taxonomic groups, or places. The 2 clearexceptions are the Jane Goodall Institute, which focuseson chimpanzees (Pan spp.), and the Dian Fossey GorillaFund International. The Wildlife Conservation Society fo-cuses on areas with high degrees of ecological integrityand “global priority species.”

Second, current conservation spending may be influ-enced by the inertia of past spending and by cultur-ally powerful notions about biological diversity. Certainspecies, particularly charismatic megafauna, attract morefunding than others, which particularly affects spend-ing patterns if the range of the species is restricted. Forexample, overall NGO spending was by far the great-est in Rwanda ($100.65/km2; mean $5.09/km2 for allcountries), most likely because this is where mountaingorillas (Gorilla gorilla beringei) occur. Rwanda alsoreceived the highest amount of spending per squarekilometer of its territory designated as hotspots andHBWAs and the third highest for Global 200 sites(Table 2). Countries in southern and eastern Africa mayhave received higher levels of NGO spending per squarekilometer of conservation priority area within their bor-ders compared with countries in western and northernsub-Saharan Africa because they contained a greater num-ber of charismatic animals traditionally associated withAfrican conservation, such as lions (Panthera Leo), ele-phants (Loxodonta spp.), and rhinoceros (Diceros bicor-nis and Ceratotherium simum) (Tables 2 & 3). The his-torical legacy of British colonialism in eastern and south-ern Africa may also have affected spending. The conserva-tion programs and wildlife departments of former Britishcolonies in this area were well organized, relatively wellfunded and received considerable support from politi-cians and NGOs before independence, and these pro-grams, departments, and NGO interests persisted afterindependence (MacKenzie 1988; Neumann 1998; Adams2004).

Third, the prioritization models are based on differentcriteria and consequently identify different places thatdo not overlap much. Spending patterns cannot closelyfollow the outputs of all models. The WWF’s Global 200model uses a much broader range of criteria to identifypriority areas than hotspots and HBWAs, which are basedon high vascular plant diversity and large extents of ei-ther very high or very low levels of landscape alteration.The Global 200 model aims for representativeness by



covering as broad a range of biomes as possible. Such anapproach may be more likely to identify places of interestto diverse NGOs, and therefore those places may receiverelatively high levels of spending.

Fourth, conservation NGOs may be reallocating theirspending to priority areas, but because the spending dataare a snapshot, we could not assess whether spendingis shifting toward priority areas. The spending data cov-ered financial years 2004–2006, whereas the prioritiza-tion models were developed in 2003 (hotspots and HB-WAs) and 2001 (Global 200 areas) (there are earlier ver-sions of each model). The fact that there are so few empir-ical assessments of where conservation money is spentwill make it difficult to assess progress in this respect.

Fifth, comparing spending by country with the pro-portion of a national territory designated as a conserva-tion priority assumes that in a perfect correlation, fundsare allocated proportionally to the total land surface areawithin a given priority polygon. There are reasons whyfunding is not distributed this way. The cost of conserva-tion across different places and biomes varies. Much ofthe biological diversity within a priority area may alreadybe altered (by definition, hotspots have lost a minimum of70% of their primary land cover), so conservation NGOsmay choose to concentrate spending on remaining in-tact areas rather than parts of the polygon that have beenaltered. The polygons may include many urban or agricul-tural areas or other places of little interest to conservationNGOs.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a variety of po-litical and economic factors influence where money isspent. Political circumstances may limit action. For ex-ample, although parts of Somalia are designated as prior-ities under both models (99.6% of its land surface areais designated as hotspot), we did not document any con-servation NGOs spending money there, probably due tolong-term political instability in this country. Historiesof conflict may also account for low NGO spending inEthiopia and Angola, although some countries with longhistories of conflict or conflict in the period immediatelybefore that for which NGO spending data were collected,such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone,and Liberia, receive average or greater than average lev-els of spending. An NGO may be unable or unwilling tobase its strategies solely on prioritization models, even ifit created the model. The vagaries of funding opportuni-ties may make it much more worthwhile for an organi-zation to spend money in a place that is not a prioritythan one that is. Funding received by NGOs may comewith strict conditions on where and how an NGO canspend it, which challenges the idea that spending can beeasily reallocated and optimized on the basis of modelresults (Wilson et al. 2009). Some funders also may notbe interested in following the prioritization models andmay restrict funding in ways that limit NGOs’ abilitiesto adhere to their own priorities. Detailed analyses of

conservation NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa show that theyadjust their strategies so that they better fit the prioritiesof funding agencies (Sachedina 2010). The large NGOsthat create the models are diverse organizations; thus,although one part of the organization may be creatinga prioritization model to guide strategy, influences andstrategies emerging from other parts of the organizationmay alter the organization’s overall direction.

Although our results suggest that conservation NGOsmay be spending money in places identified as a Global200 priority, it appears they do not disproportionatelyspend money in hotspots and HBWAs. This includesConservation International, the NGO associated with thismodel. Some researchers have used places identified byprioritization models as a proxy for places where NGOsare likely to work, albeit with caveats (Redford et al.2008). Our results show that this assumption is problem-atic. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that countriesin eastern and southern Africa received higher levels ofconservation NGO spending, and countries in westernand northern sub-Saharan Africa received lower levels ofconservation NGO spending, relative to the proportionof the country designated as a conservation priority area.Given our findings and the difficulties of directing re-sources to conservation priority areas, we suggest thatNGOs, either individually or collectively, pay more atten-tion to where they are spending their money. If conser-vation NGOs wish their spending to reflect conservationpriorities as identified on the basis of hotspot-HBWAs andGlobal 200 models, we suggest they consider increasingactivities in northern and western African biomes ratherthan focusing effort on the traditional conservation areasof southern and eastern Africa.

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